Hard Rock Café finds a way to open this summer in downtown Reykjavík: Moves restaurant to second floor

Coming to downtown afte all The operators of Hard Rock Café Reykjavík plan to open in downtown Reykjavík in the summer of 2016, 11 years after the first Hard Rock Café Reykjavík closed its doors. Photo/Hard Rock Café

Yesterday we reported that Reykjavík City Council had denied an application by Hard Rock Café for a permit to open a restaurant by Lækjargata street in downtown Reykjavík. The denial was based on the fact that the planned restaurant would have pushed the share of restaurants, cafés and bars among downtown storefronts to 53%, which is above the 50% permitted by current regulations. Hard Rock Café has found a solution, which it hopes will allow it to stick to plans to open in its preferred location: Move the restaurant to the second floor.

The future location of Hard Rock Café Reykjavík A Hard Rock Café store will occupy the ground floor, with the restaurant being moved to the second floor. Photo/Róbert.

Instead of having the restaurant open up to the street, a Hard Rock Store, which sells various souvenirs, T-shirts and other merchandize, would be placed on the ground floor facing the street. The restaurant itself would be located on the floors above, Jón Þór Bielvedt, the owner of the Icelandic Hard Rock Café franchise told the local newspaper Morgunblaðið. This solution, he argues, should satisfy everyone.

Jón Þór points out that various Hard Rock themed mercandize usually makes up a significant portion of the sales of Hard Rock Café restaurants. “It’s extremely important, and a store like this can easily have a much higher turnover than many free-standing stores in downtown.”

Morgunblaðið points out that this is not the first time a restaurant which had been denied a permit to open solves the problem by simply moving away from the storefront. In January an Asian restaurant NAM, which had been denied permission to open on Laugavegur street, opened after having moved the restaurant to the back of the property where it had originally planned to open.